a great post from a few years back..has anyone else got any similar experiences? That subtle persuasive attitude that your mother expressed by leaving cigarettes unattended with you there was also something that I endured many times too Tom. At first I was under the impression that it was done simply for her convience, since I thought she would be returning soon. More often than not the cigarette was left for minutes at a time slowly burning down while she was off doing other things. I even thought of it as a torture when she would leave a cigarette in my room burning like that. I originally thought she either didn't care or was doing it as a symbol of her authority over me. I didn't see it as a open invitation to try it until much later, and even then I was so very tentative, simply standing over the ashtray with the cigarette smoke flowing over my face, fascinated and turned on but not yet understanding quite why as I was only nine yrs old. My innocence about it ended the day she walked in on me doing in the dining room that without my knowledge. She walked up behind me, wrapped an arm around my now frightened body, flicked the ash off the cigarette and took a drag and released the smoke down at me. I thought for sure I was about to be punished. Instead she put the cigarette to my lips and gave me my first drag. I had been so unindated with her smoke as well as others my whole life that inhaling that little bit of smoke didn't make me cough, although I was certainly dizzy from it. After that I realized my mother wanted me to smoke and occasionally from then on I did share a puff from her cigarettes, although I never once considered until much later to have a whole cigarette for myself. When I was in my teens my mother told me she had been made to smoke at age 8 by her older sister, and had been smoking ever since and loved it. I understood a great deal then about what she had done with me was deliberate yet not forced, just a continue and subtle psychological and physical persuasion about smoking.
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